Right now claims about low-volume social media operations having big systemic effects lack credible supporting evidence or even specific claims that could be tested.
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Replying to @BrendanNyhan @NateSilver538
Many complex systems & past events can't have simple testable hypotheses and refusing to study them would not be good. This isn't even a scial science problem. Geology manages. Also, as I keep arguing, the DNC hack and aftermath is part of this so some impacts are face-value big.
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zeynep tufekci Retweeted
Plus, I'm increasingly wondering if it is that low-volume. (See here, which is, almost by definition an undercount since we only know what's been uncovered). At the moment, anything we can measure is a modest estimate for floor since it was covert. https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/1075854442191175680 …)
zeynep tufekci added,
This Tweet is unavailable.1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes -
Once again, though, my MAIN argument is that Nate's metric: percent of social media posts, is not strong. Social media is characterized by interaction, feedback loops, mainstream media interaction, narrative shifting, meme-copying etc. % originating is not a decisive measure.
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Replying to @zeynep @BrendanNyhan
My quick-and-dirty metric is actually social media *impressions*, not posts. The Russian troll posts constituted a *lower* share of impressions than posts, which really cuts AGAINST your hypothesis (i.e. they punched below their weight rather than going viral).
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How about this as a **testable** theory: HYPOTHESIS: If Russian troll posts were more influential than the raw numbers imply, they should have higher-than-average engagement (retweets/replies/faves) from blue-checkmark journalist Twitter accounts than other 2016 content.
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Replying to @NateSilver538 @BrendanNyhan
That's just taking us back to Skinner, skipping over the whole cognitive revolution. People read and interpret, even if they don't react (especially to trolling). But, if we had full data, we could measure narratives they initiated -> media narratives. Theoretically measurable.
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Replying to @zeynep @BrendanNyhan
OK, it's pretty telling IMO that you've rejected an **actually** testable (in practice, not just in theory) hypothesis for ones that are either impossible or extremely cumbersome to test.
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Replying to @NateSilver538 @BrendanNyhan
Is it possible that it's not a good one? Why would people actively respond *more* to trolling that nevertheless impacted them? How would you ever measure impacts of abusive behavior online? We know: people tend to go silent. There really was a reason we moved beyond Skinner.
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Replying to @zeynep @BrendanNyhan
OK, then give me some other hypothesis that's *actually testable* and that someone (you or me or a smart graduate student out there) could *actually test* (i.e.. the data is available publicly) in a reasonable length of time.
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You'd never have any complex research by that standard. Allow only existing data plus a grad student—preclude all other questions? Here's a reasonable ask: 1-an independent research team; 2-gets access to non-public social media data; 3-combine it with public data; 4-gets a year.
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A version of this is happening, but 2016 is excluded. Plus, we need a proper longitidunal panel for the future. My point in raising the objection is that there is genuinly doable research, but it's not easy. Framing the question right plus some resources plus, yeah, data access.
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Respectfully, the starting premise here is wrong. Effective or not, RU efforts (of which IRA was only part) WERE NOT LOW VOLUME. RU & RU-linked fake & conspiracy news was roughly 2-4% of all Twitter "news" articles on election eve. https://knightfoundation.org/features/misinfo/ …
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